Blondepoker rakeback??

[tikay]

Turnover is Vanity, financial prudence is sanity, London is urbanity.


Well you try thinking of something that rhymes with sanity

Well the actual maxim is......

Turnover is Vanity.

Profit is sanity.

But CASH IS KING.

That applies to any commercial organisation, be it a poker cardroom, or an ice-cream factory, and it's universal.

Jeez, I'm delivering some sermons tonight. I apologise, but "business" is my thing, with thinking outside the box my speciality act. I'll shut up now, I promise.

[Newmanseye]

I just wanted to post and say what a great thread this is, it really shows blonde for what it is, a fantastic community where opinions may not be shared but are respected.

[bobby1]

Thank you for that Rob.

We are just not keen to go down the "who can give the biggest rakeback" slippery slope, for some of the reasons I Posted earlier.

As to your other suggestion, we are dead set against EVER charging for access to blonde Forum, or the Updates. Your theory is an interesting one, but many blondeites do not even play online, so we would be discriminating against them.

As to (non-blonde) Affiliates & Banners, this is a matter we are currently reviewing. It may well be that we decide to "bet the shop" on blonde, but that's a decision yet to be made.

Other ways of financing the Live Updates are in train, more of which in due course. But it will NOT involve blondeites paying for them.

Tony,

As Andrew said the rakeback wars are in full flow at the moment and althought available on many sites it is in my opinion amazing how badly thought out these promos are from the business point of view.

 I know of one site ( it isnt Hills before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion) that is giving 40% of a players full rake back which is ludicrous. I know many players will be on good rakeback schemes but for every pound this site makes from these players they are giving 32% away as a revenue share to the provider and 40% back to the player. When you add in the marketing of these promos and the handlng of these schemes by staff they are making around 20p in every pound that these players provide.

It may well be great for recruitment but it is too big a price to pay imvho.

Bobby knows this business inside out, & I am much heartened that he sees it the same way that we do.

Turnover means naff all to me, big does not necessarily mean beautiful.

Turnover is Vanity, financial prudence is sanity.

I can see why you were a successful businessman Tony.

One of the real issues for online sites is marketing, i cannot remember the exact cost of an advert in say PIE or Cardplayer but it is at least 2-3k depending on length of agreement and loyalty of site.

 It is more expensive to advertise in the sports mags that now cover poker in a big way. I was once taken to lunch by one of these new mags, the sales girl was very thorough but she made the mistake of showing me the rate card after we had ordered the food. This was a new mag and she wanted 16k for an advert on the back cover. I actually laughed and told her she had to be kidding,the problem is these mags are getting that many sites advertising in them that they can keep putting the price up because nobody wants to be left behind.....and someone somewhere will want that backpage ad. When the mag came out Pokerstars had bought it.

There is no way to track the spend in mag ads as there is no direct link to new accounts unless you use a bonus code or designed web link so it is in accounting sense'dead money'.

Imho in the position that Blonde has at the moment it does not need advertising because the level of players in the cardroom at the moment does not justify the expense of a concerted ad campaign at 2-3k a publication.

imvho what Blonde needs now is exactly what it has got and the real strengths of this site are not measurable in financial terms.

oh and in the poker site world the saying is.

player numbers for vanity, profit for sanity.

[The Baron]

Just had a read of this interesting thread.

I think the "point" of the cardroom, after maintaining the excellence of blonde by covering its overheads, is to have a cardroom which is fun - just like the forum.

It's meant to allow the rookies to mix it up with the El Blondies and the bracelet winners. It's mean to be flame free in our SNG's like it is in our forum.

Rakeback, whilst not completely ruled out yet, is maybe something that is an incentive to the more serious player and the bonus and rake whores. To the average blonde I would like to think that the community of the cardroom is the appeal.

I for one would rather have $3 STT's where my aces get cracked by 47 (Robert you git!) but I have a laugh, than worrying about my rakeback each month. I can worry about that elsewhere.

IMO that's not the "point" of the blonde cardroom.

As tikay said, people who are just going to join up for the great rakeback deal or the huge sign-up bonus aren't really the customers we're aiming for anyway.

[Nem]

I just wanted to post and say what a great thread this is, it really shows blonde for what it is, a fantastic community where opinions may not be shared but are respected.

I agree, some great points have been made in this thread.

[redsimon]

blondepoker has no affliates and no rake back and no sign up bonuses this is because blondepoker would rather give you better reward for action points

more details are available on http://www.blondepokerleague.com/promotions

My only gripe with the "WSOP hands" promotion is it only benefits Hold 'em cash players. What about those of us who are O8/PLO8/PLO and SNG players?

[ifm]

I love that vanity, sanity saying, i'll stick it in the next presentation i do.
I do a slide (as part of the monthly presentation) and part of it is sales v budgeted sales and cash v budgeted cash.
When i say even though we had sales of £2.2m last month against a projected £1.8m our cash is £600k down some of the guys just don't understand how catastrophic it can be.
There is no point selling everything you have if you don't get paid for it.

Great thread BTW

[Sheriff Fatman]

Rakeback, whilst not completely ruled out yet

As Rob pointed out earlier in the thread, Tribeca have recently changed their position on this and are now 'anti-rakeback'.  Doyle's Room pulled their rakeback scheme for new players as a result.

Sheriff

[The Rivercard]

I have to say this is the best thread I have read.

I think BP has a great future with so many loyal and passionate supporters. I have owned advertising agencies for nearly 20 years and have rarely seen such a community spirit.

I made my point earlier and I stick by it but I respect and admire the feelings of the posters and hope that BP continues to grow.

 

[AndrewT]

Rakeback, whilst not completely ruled out yet

As Rob pointed out earlier in the thread, Tribeca have recently changed their position on this and are now 'anti-rakeback'.  Doyle's Room pulled their rakeback scheme for new players as a result.

Sheriff

Yes, Prima have also been anti-rakeback for new players since the start of the month. Also, the basis behind the whole Party/Empire split a while back was Party trying to kill rakeback on their network - all the Empire sharks (who were on rakeback deals) were encouraged to signup with Party as all the fish had been taken away from Empire.

These sorts of things are indicative of the online poker market moving into the consolidation phase - we're moving out of the initial 'landgrab' phase where new poker rooms can emerge and establish big markets. We're now seeing the big players look to lock in profits and market share. It will be increasingly difficult for a new poker room to emerge who could grow to the size of Party/Pokerstars without the big boys taking measures against them (witness how Ultimatebet crushed Pokershare when the newcomer starting enticing the UB players away).

Of course, that won't affect Blondepoker - there's enough room in the market for niche rooms to tick along with a tidy profit.

[tikay]

bobby1 says......

player numbers for vanity, profit for sanity.

Not heard that one, but it'll do nicely!

[12barblues]

........... opinions may not be shared but are respected.

I like this phrase so much that I'm going to steal it for future use.

[thetank]

Completely agree with 12barblues's debauking of robyong's suggestion to charge blonde users an annual fee. I believe that such a thing would destroy the blonde as we know it. The community that has been built would slowly crumble.

It's the best poker forum not because of the excellent live updates, not because of the bang-up moderators, nor the fine work done on the technical side of things, although this all helps. Blonde is #1 because of all the blondites.

A lot of us get a fair bit out of blonde, but we also put a lot in. Blonde would not be what it is today without the sterling contribution of it's 2,910 members. If we were ever charged for using this forum, even if it was just £1 a year, I, for one, would be mortally offended and promptly bugger off elsewhere. I was mightily relieved to hear Tikay state that he was dead against the idea.

Having said that, I'm happy to support blonde, because I choose to, not because I have to.

There's a difference between playing recreationally and playing for a living. It's possible to do both.
I'm not about to switch to blondepoker to play all my games. I'll still earn my daily crust at my chosen site, but will use blondepoker's skin for most of my recreational play.

[thetank]

Whilst harping on about the fine community spirit, probably a mistake not to say......

  thachipmover  to Stepford

We all got a little sidetracked, nobody said that I don't think.

Well done on prompting an interesting debate with your first post.